The agreement between Putin and Kirsan Ilyumzhinov (FIDE President) will perhaps salvage Sochi’s reputation after all of the Olympic insults about it being less than suitable, unfinished site. This tournament will also be juxtaposed against the political climate since Russia annexed Crimea after Sochi Olympics.

The chess tournament is also going to be challenged by Russian finances, as the Bloomberg article indicates that Russia needs to add an extra $58 Billion to ease their bank system’s funding shortage putting at least one bank:

Sberbank is between Scylla and Charybdis

– an analyst at BCS Financial Group

Toss in a former chess champion, Russian Activist,Garry Kasparov (Га́рри Ки́мович Каспа́ров) and this tournament has all the making of another drama that could blow up in the face of FIDE and/or Putin. Stanczyk loves Slavic dramas!

It was supposed to be today that we found out where and when the 2012 Men’s Chess Championship between Anand & Gelfand would occur. The process for selecting a host for this tournament has been extended another month until 31-July-2011.

The details can be found here: http://discusschess.com/bids-deadline-for-anand-gelfand-2012-extended.html . I just wanted to update my earlier article on this Chess Championship. Stanczyk thinks FIDE needs to be more flexible on their demands. I think they are snoozing on the job and need to wake up and smell the coffee. I hope someone in the USA can pull together a bid, I’d love to see a Chess Championship in person! OK, America its your move.